Review: Why Celtic Won Sundays Old Firm Game

A late goal from Moussa Dembele was enough to sink Rangers in Sunday’s Scottish League Cup semi final. This was enough to send many Celtic and Rangers fans home joyful and disappointed respectively. Celtic are going to the final, Rangers are not.

However, what about the game itself? What happens if we take a closer look at the events at Hampden on Sunday?

The first finding proves a basic rule of football: the same kind of stuff can happen in different matches, but the results can vary drastically.

Let’s compare Sunday’s game to the previous two derbies this year. In three games against Celtic, Rangers have not once managed more than three shots on target. On the other hand, Celtic have never taken less than 20 shots in any of this year’s games against their Glasgow rivals.

Looking at expected goals, a method used for rating the quality and quantity of chances a team gets per game, this pattern is repeated. In each of the three games, Celtic have created more chances and better chances than Rangers.

However, from three games, we have three totally different results: a Celtic thrashing, a narrow Celtic win and a Rangers win on penalties.

What does this tell us? That the “gap” between the two is just as wide as it was back in the League Cup semi final in April. With a bit of luck, Rangers could beat Celtic on any given day, but the majority of the time, Celtic would win.

What about the match itself?

The story can be told in a few simple graphics. The first one is Rangers’ formation in defence:

!Rangers Formation

This was against a Celtic team that shaped up in attack like this:

!Celtic Formation 2

Rangers’ aim was to kill the space in the centre of their own half, and make it as difficult as possible for Celtic to play through the middle. Clint Hill and Rob Kiernan stayed fairly deep throughout the game, whilst Andy Halliday slotted in front of the pair to effectively clog up any space in front of the Rangers penalty box.

Furthermore, when Lee Wallace ventured forward, Hodson would slot in to become the third centre half in case Celtic’s attacking trident of Dembele, Sinclair and Forrest launched a counter attack. This did have some effect, with 9 of Celtic’s shots being blocked by the Rangers rearguard.

However, as so often this season, it was a tactical switch by Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers that changed the game for Celtic. Bitton and Rogic were replaced by Armstrong and Griffiths, switching Celtic’s attacking structure to something like this:

!Celtic Formation

In the last half hour, Celtic started to create chances at double the rate they had before. Scott Sinclair hit the post, while Matt Gilks saved three one on ones.

The secret? Overloads.

One of Pep Guardiola’s firmest beliefs is that the key to winning any team sport is to create overloads in key areas. If you can get more of your guys in the right areas, then you’ll control the game.

With Rodgers’ tactical shakeup, Celtic now had five players around the centre of Rangers’ half, compared to their previous four. With Lustig and Tierney pushing right up the park, it meant that Rangers were forced to play deep and narrow, because they couldn’t afford to leave extra men high or wide.

This effectively surrendered the midfield, meaning the Rangers attack had to resort to long balls wide to Joe Dodoo, who then found himself isolated against Celtic’s ruthless defence.

These switches by Rodgers meant that Celtic were getting a shot at goal away after every 90 seconds in possession. When you have a guy like Moussa Dembele leading your line, who has now hit 14 goals in his first 20 Celtic games, you just know that he’s bound to bury one of these chances eventually. Lo and behold he did.

Ultimately, Rangers rode their luck a bit too much and Celtic were good value for their win.

Analysis by Dougie Wright. Twitter: @dougie_analysis